Author: Matthew Smith
Illustrator: Melanie Florencio
Genre: Horror
Welcome back, kiddies, to a special Halloween version of the Webcomic Police. And what better than a trick and a treat. A trick because rather than a webcomic, we have an independent comic I bought from the author from a comic convention. A treat because it's a double comic, giving me two comics to review for the price of one. This week we'll be looking at The Curse of Stranglehold, a supposed homage to late-70's horror movies. Will it be a “gripping” full-”throttle” thriller? Or will the author and artist “choke” and not meet the expectations they set for themselves?
Writing
(Note:
Because this is a published work that costs money to view, I'll try
to keep the review as spoiler-free as possible.)
Four
teenagers, Carlos, Monica, Kim, and Jeff go camping in Wenton Woods,
with Carlos and Jeff hoping to seduce their girlfriends. Hoping to
scare them into cuddling up to them, Jeff tells the group an urban
legend about a teenager who took his girlfriend out to Wenton Woods
while on a date and was beaten up and murdered by school bullies.
Since then, anyone going out to the woods hears “Stranglehold,”
the song that was playing on the car stereo the night the teenager
was murdered, and then are strangled to death by the teenager's
ghost. It turns out that the legend is true, and Monica and a local
police officer investigate the story to uncover the real reason for
the hauntings.
Despite
being a homage to horror, the comic doesn't stay content in merely
using the same tropes and stereotypes that are known in older horror
films, such as the order in which characters are killed. Also, the
characters show some awareness of the genre, which is reflected in
the comic. It doesn't go to the point of a Scream-style
meta narrative which rattles off rules of surviving
in a horror movie or discussing horror
movie trivia, but it's slight enough to make it feel more
realistic. When Jeff tells the story and says that the woods are
cursed, Monica replies “What the $#@! are we doing out here then?”
After he tells the story, she then points out plot holes, such as
what happened to the girl the teenager was dating or why the police
never bothered investigating a string of murders happening in the
same place. However, it turns out that these plot holes are
foreshadowing the later investigation of “Stranglehold,” and what
actually happened. While such a choice often leads to a painfully
self-aware, snarky work that can't go five minutes without ridiculing
its own internal logic (which makes you wonder why the author even
included those cliches if they hate them so much) the comic wisely
breaks convention to make the story better.
The
only weakness to the story would have to be the characters. The
characters in the story are stock characters you've likely seen
before such as the obstructive sheriff, the sassy black woman, the
horny teenager who wants to get laid, etc. Part of the reason could
be that it is a one-off comic, so packing characterization in becomes
difficult, especially once the bodies start piling up. It also leads
to characters just doing things because the plot says so. Why does a
deputy get involved in the case despite insisting every step of the
way that it must be a bad prank? However, the dialogue does a good
job of establishing these characters' personalities and unlikely
pairings of characters to get some deeper characterization and seeing
how they interact (like when a deputy is talking to Monica on the
phone and makes a pop culture reference she doesn't get, showing the
age and cultural gap between the two). Maybe if it were part of a
longer work or expanded out, the comic would feel less plot-driven,
but overall I'd say it does a good job of working within the length
it was given.
(Note:
Under Fair Use
policy, I'm allowed to quote the work and put up scans of the
illustrations as necessary for criticism. However, the more portions
of the book I post, the less of a chance I can use Fair Use as a
defense.)
The
comic is done in black and white, likely sketched, inked, and colored
completely digitally. Sadly, it is the weakest part of the comic, as
the art is inconsistent, as if the artist hasn't figured out the
style she wanted for the comic and kept changing every so often. For
example, the same character is drawn four different ways in the same
story. The first
style has a rounded out face, and she's drawn in a sketchy style
with little detail. The second
way gives her a more angular face, gives her more detail
including coloring her skin tone and using a halftone pattern for her
hairband, the
third way rounds out her face again, colors in her skin tone but
uses less shading, and a fourth
way (second panel) which is used for the last part of the book
which uses bolder lines, a more shaped face, and a simple cel-shading
style. Some of this could be chalked up to the illustrator improving
as the comic goes on, the last page in particular has three of those
styles on one page, showing the lack of consistency in the comic
overall. The illustrator needs to pick just one of the styles, or at
least two that aren't jarring together, and stick with it. Also, she
needs some model sheets so the characters features are consistent.
The
art could also use some cleaning up. There are areas that need to be
fully colored in, there are sketchy lines that make the art look
incomplete (The cover of all things is especially bad with this. The
characters still have gestural lines still on them, the trees aren't
filled in, and the smoke coming off the fire doesn't really look like
smoke and not much like a face. If it weren't for the fact that the
alternate covers weren't that good I would have said the author
shouldn't have used it at all). There is some good work in the comic
and every once and a while you get some fantastic illustrations, but
the quality is all over the board and drags the work down.
The Curse of Stranglehold
is a decent comic. The plot doesn't revel in the trappings of the
horror genre, nor does it insist on nitpicking the leaps of logic it
requires at every step of the way, instead striking a happy medium
between the two to breathe new life into a somewhat familiar story.
However, the art is inconsistent and sloppy, dragging down the
overall quality of the work. If you like psychological horror and
ghost stories, then you'd likely enjoy it.
Averaged Score
3.5/5
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